Maremma hit screens on September 10, and it's carrying more weight than a debut usually does. The hero, Maadhav Bhupathiraju, is Ravi Teja's nephew, which means this rural drama was always going to get looked at closely. Two early reviews, from Oneindia Telugu and Telugu Filmibeat, landed within hours of each other, and neither is calling it a launch to remember.

The film is set in Mahishapuram, a village that Telugu Filmibeat places in Warangal district, gripped by drought and disease until the goddess Maremma is worshipped and a buffalo is sacrificed in her name. A priest then predicts another buffalo will be born to carry the name forward. It is, and its care falls to Karni, played by Bhupathiraju. Right as the annual jatara approaches, the animal goes missing. What follows is the village's search for it, and whatever that search stirs up along the way.

Both reviews find things to like early on. The songs and their picturisation get singled out by Oneindia Telugu as genuinely capturing Telangana's folk texture, and Filmibeat agrees at least one or two tracks work well on screen. Cinematographer Prashanth Ankireddy's framing of the village comes in for praise too, and both outlets think director Manchala Nagaraju's core idea, built around local custom and belief, had promise in the opening stretch.

Where they diverge a little is on the hero. Oneindia Telugu says Bhupathiraju does justice to his part and calls his acting passable, arguing it's the script that fails to use whatever he brings. Filmibeat is far less forgiving, calling his performance disappointing and questioning whether he manages even a baseline performance, pointing to dialogue delivery and body language as weak spots throughout. Deepa Balu, known from the Tamil web series Heart Beat, gets consistent credit from both for settling into her village-girl role.

The complaints pile up after that. Both reviews say the second half narrows down almost entirely to the hunt for the missing buffalo and loses whatever tension or emotion the setup promised. The villain track disappoints, the sequences built around occult ritual don't land, and Filmibeat adds that some scenes and side characters, including a couple of comedians, seem to exist without any clear purpose. Oneindia Telugu says the film never settles on what message it wants to send about animal sacrifice, if that was even the intent. Filmibeat has a separate gripe: it says the lighting is so dark in places that actors' expressions get lost entirely.

Producer Mayur Reddy Bandaru's Moksha Arts banner has backed decent production value, both reviews agree, but say the writing and execution let it down. Music by Prashanth R Vihari and the background score also get a nod as one of the film's steadier departments.

With reviews split mostly between muted and unimpressed, Maremma's opening weekend numbers will say more about whether Bhupathiraju gets a second outing anytime soon.